--:-- Shamita Basu: Good morning. It's Wednesday, July 13th. I'm Shamita Basu. This is Apple News Today. Each morning, hear about some of the most fascinating stories in the news and how the world's best journalists are covering them.
--:-- Shamita Basu: New video from inside the elementary school in Uvalde provides the most detailed account we've seen of officers' delayed response to the mass shooting that killed 19 children and two teachers. It took 77 minutes before officers entered the classroom and killed the shooter.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This surveillance and body camera video was obtained exclusively by the Austin American Statesman and the TV station K-View. It shows police initially approaching the classroom where the gunman was, then retreating. Then it shows officers waiting as gunfire continues. More officers show up over time, and many of them are well-equipped with body armor, helmets, shields, and heavy weapons. They're seen looking for keys to doors that we now know were unlocked.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's more gunfire and more waiting. At one point, an officer puts on hand sanitizer. At another point, two officers fist bump. The editor of the American Statesman said the decision to publish the video came after long and thoughtful discussions and was necessary to get to the truth about the response to the shooting. They also said they chose to edit the video to remove the sounds of children screaming, which they deemed too graphic.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The police response to the shooting is under investigation, and there have been calls for more disclosure of what happened on that day. But not everyone is happy with how this video went public. One woman whose daughter was killed posted on Facebook urging people not to share the video, saying this is the opposite of what the families want.
--:-- Shamita Basu: At a public meeting in Uvalde last night, City Council member Ernest King III criticized the news outlets for putting out this footage. They did that for ratings and they did that for money. And that's the only reason they put that out there.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Several people in the crowd didn't want to focus on the role of the media. They said instead of attacking the press, attack the cops that did nothing. Pete Arredondo, the school district police chief who been criticized by law enforcement experts for the slow response that day, also came up in yesterday's meeting. He had been elected to the city council a few weeks before the shooting.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Last night, when the council passed a motion to accept his resignation from his council post, the crowd cheered.
--:-- Shamita Basu: One man who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6th testified that he joined the group because former President Trump's words encouraged him to go. The January 6th committee heard from Stephen Ayers yesterday.
--:-- Shamita Basu: He previously pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct for his role in the attack. The committee's Republican vice chair, Liz Cheney, questioned him.
--:-- Liz Cheney: Would it have made a difference to you to know that President Trump himself had no evidence of widespread fraud?
--:-- Stephen Ayers: Oh, definitely.
--:-- Stephen Ayers: I may not have come down here.
--:-- Stephen Ayers: I left the Capitol after Trump released a video asking supporters to go home. That was more than three hours after the insurrection started.
--:-- Stephen Ayers: To me, if he would have done that earlier in the day, 1:30, you know, we wouldn't be in this, maybe we wouldn't be in this bad of a situation or something.
--:-- Shamita Basu: It's the latest testimony to support the January 6th committee's argument that Trump is responsible for inciting the insurrection because the Capitol attackers followed his instructions.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Harris told the committee that he's angry that Trump continues to mislead his followers.
--:-- Stephen Ayers: It makes me mad because I was hanging on every word he was saying. Everything he was putting out, I was following it.
--:-- Stephen Ayers: I mean, if I was doing it, hundreds of thousands or millions of other people are doing it.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Before Ayers left the House chamber yesterday, he approached the police officers in attendance and apologized for his actions that day.
--:-- Shamita Basu: We also heard testimony from Jason Van Tatenhove, the former spokesman for the far-right group The Oath Keepers, which he called a militia.
--:-- Jason Van Tatenhove: What it was going to be was an armed revolution. I mean, people died that day. Law enforcement officers died this day. There was a gallows set up in front of the Capitol.
--:-- Jason Van Tatenhove: This could have been the spark that started a new civil war.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The January 6th committee also revealed more about potential witness tampering. Cheney said Trump attempted to contact a future witness.
--:-- Shamita Basu: The committee shared information about the outreach to the Justice Department.
--:-- Shamita Basu: There's another public hearing expected next week, which the committee says will focus on what Trump did and did not do on the day of the attack.
--:-- Shamita Basu: President Biden is on his first Mideast trip as president, visiting Israel, the West Bank, and Saudi Arabia.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Now, that last stop is a big deal. Biden has heavily criticized Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for human rights violations. But the source of his power is the Saudi oil supply.
--:-- Shamita Basu: So Biden is meeting with him in part to encourage the kingdom to pump more oil to help keep gas prices down.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: There's just a mixed sense, though, of how much they can actually do. I mean, when you ask whether the Saudis can actually increase production, some experts will tell you actually that they're at capacity. There's not much more that they can do.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: This trip is about much more than just oil prices. Regional security, including threats from Iran, will be a major topic.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: One player may get the most out of Biden's visit. If there's any country that really comes out on top as a result of this upcoming visit that President Biden is making to the Middle East, it's Israel.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: And that's because so far under Biden's presidency, whether he's wanted to or not, practically everything he's done has been in some ways a victory for the Israeli government.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: That's because, for one, Biden has largely continued the very pro-Israel policies of his predecessor. Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, recognizing it as the capital of Israel. Biden has not reversed that decision.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: He did restore some aid money to Palestinians and has spoken out against expanding settlements. But the administration has put in very little diplomatic effort behind the Palestinian movement for an independent state.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: In many ways, Biden's foreign policy is an echo of Trump's foreign policy when it comes to Israel and the broader Middle East as a whole.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: Trump also pulled America out of the nuclear deal with Iran. Some inside the Biden administration wanted to restore that deal. But that hasn't happened. That's seen as a victory for Israel over its Iranian enemy.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: Supporters of Palestinians worry the Biden administration is too close to Israel. They want the U.S. to pressure Israel to fully explain the killing of Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh.
--:-- Nahal Toosi: U.S. investigators recently said it was likely that Israeli soldiers shot her, but didn't conclude that it was intentional.
--:-- Shamita Basu: This week, Ada Limon was named America's newest poet laureate.
--:-- Shamita Basu: She's been described as a poet who connects, who writes accessible, engaging poetry that grounds us in where we are and who we share our world with. She often writes about our relationship with nature.
--:-- Ada Limon: So I thought it might be nice to end our show on a different note today and just listen together to me read part of my poem called Give Me This, where the narrator is watching a groundhog stealing fresh tomatoes from her garden.
--:-- Ada Limon: I watched her munch and stand on her haunches, taking such pleasure in the watery bites. Why am I not allowed delight?
--:-- Ada Limon: A stranger writes to request my thoughts on suffering. Barbed wire pulled out of the mouth as if demanding that I kneel to the trap of coiled spikes used in warfare and fencing.
--:-- Ada Limon: Instead, I watch the groundhog more closely, and a sound escapes me, a small spasm of joy I did not imagine when I woke.
--:-- Ada Limon: She is a funny creature and earnest, and she's doing what she can to survive.
--:-- Shamita Basu: Limon has said she writes to remind others that we are nature too.
--:-- Shamita Basu: You can find all these stories and more in the Apple News app. And when you're in the app, keep listening to hear narrated articles from our News Plus partners.
--:-- Shamita Basu: I'll talk with you again tomorrow.
